How You Are Not
by akmdreamer
Summary: Harry's point of view of the possession scene in The Order of the Phoenix. "It isn't how you are alike. It's how you are not."


**DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. No copyright infringement is intended, and I am making no money off of this. (In other words: Please don't sue! I'm just another hopeless Harry Potter fan! ;) )**

**A/N: So, I was watching The Order of the Phoenix the other day, and I kept coming back to a few quotes from it, feeling like I should do something with them. And basically, this is what I came up with. And, yes, this is based off the possession scene in OotP.**

* * *

_"It isn't how you are alike. It's how you are not." _  
_~Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) to Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), The Order of the Phoenix (Film)_

_"You're the weak one, and you'll never know love...or friendship...and I feel sorry for you." _  
_~Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) to Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), The Order of the Phoenix (Film)_

_"...Even though we've got a fight ahead of us, we've got one thing that Voldemort doesn't have. ...Something worth fighting for."_  
_~Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) to Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis), and Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch), The Order of the Phoenix (Film)_

* * *

His body throbbed, in entirety. He could no longer distinguish one part from the other. He tried to raise a hand, but found he had no control over it. It didn't really matter, though - he doubted he'd be able to separate his fingers.

_His fingers._They clenched painfully into his palm...only one hand. Which one? He didn't know.

He wasn't sure what was happening, wasn't sure why he was still thinking. A jolt of cold reached him and he knew he was on the floor as the powdered glass dug obnoxiously into his palm. It felt like nothing, like being nudged with the end of a quill.

Even as he writhed, agony threatening to overcome all reason, something that he didn't recognize, something that wasn't part of him, something dark, shoved its fingers mercilessly into the edges of his mind, his soul, grappling for a hold and an entrance.

In the corner of his mind, the voice of Severus Snape berated him. _"So weak...so vulnerable..."_

His resistance faltered.

The grip on his mind tightened, but the one on his soul still fought.

His mouth snapped open and he choked on a voice that wasn't his, but his tongue was no longer his to command.

"You've lost, Old Man," he rasped. The Dark grasp flexed, and he gasped out a desperate groan.

The images playing across his eyelids were nonsensical. Trapped in his own mind, he watched a woman with red hair flying across her face clutch her son to her chest as she screamed, reaching out to pull a door closed in vain as a cloaked shadow drew a wand on her.

He watched as smoky green tendrils wrapped lovingly around a young, gray-eyed boy standing in a graveyard darkened with dusk, who wrenched backwards, those eyes still wide open but never to see again.

A hooded Dementor's breath rattled against his face as it leaned closer.

The Darkness flickered as a handsome man pushed out his last breath as if with effort, and curved back gracefully through a veil of nothing, a veil of everything.

The Darkness clutched more determinedly, and he fought back now as grief, as intense as he'd ever known flooded him so fully that the physical pain was of little consequence.

_Let it stop_._ Let it end. Let me die._

He wasn't aware of his shallow breathing, sounding disturbingly like the ones of the Dementor that had loomed moments ago in his memory. He wasn't aware of the silver-bearded man kneeling next to him, pleading his name softly.

"Harry..." the man murmured, as the Darkness tore relentlessly at him. He reeled back, twisting his body as if he could get away from the torment.

A face streaming blood, with spectacles lopsided on the nose stared up at him, eyes fluttering as the red-haired man gasped, "Help..." once more before welcoming the cold arms of unconsciousness.

He was staring at a mirror now, fogged and dotted with grime.

"Look at me!" the Darkness' voice hissed, and his neck snapped to look into the glass. His face faded smoothly, replaced with a bald head crawling with veins, slit nostrils, and poisonous red eyes.

His breathing quickened and he grunted out another gasp. _NO!_

"Harry..." the old man whispered again. "It isn't how you are alike. It's how you are _not_."

He pushed his palms into the floor and his body rose in an arch off the ground as he shoved at the Darknesses' hold. _Stop. Make it stop!_

For just a moment, he was still, and but with the stillness came the twitches of misery, like wounds left alone so that you can feel their sting, and not just the agony of the weapon inflicting them.

People.

There were people there now, in the Atrium. They were familiar. They were people he needed right now, but they were people he wished were elsewhere, away from this unspeakable danger.

A brown haired girl shivered and reached out as if to touch his face, but didn't move from where she stood. Another girl, with red hair, grabbed her hand in comfort, without taking her eyes off him. Two boys came up behind and another girl. They clustered together silently, staring at him, begging him with the fear in their eyes - not fear _of_ him, but fear_ for_ him.

He saw the red-haired girl's lips tremble, no sound leaving her, but forming the silent words, _Please, Harry..._

He moaned again, wrestling with the Darkness.

The images came faster.

A younger version of the dark-haired girl flew into his arms with a triumphant grin on her face.

He was at a table spread with breakfast, snickering with the red-haired boy.

Below the surface of a mirror, the images of his parents smiled at him, affection shining through their eyes, though they were clouded by the glass.

The handsome man who'd tumbled through the veil embraced him and promised him they'd be a true family someday.

The brown-haired boy stood with a wand pointed at a girl, and her own wand flew across the room at his spell. People clustered around the boy and he allowed a proud smile to creep onto his face at Harry's praise.

The blond girl was smiling vaguely, her wand behind her ear and a magazine upside down on her lap.

The red-haired girl approached him in a dirty Quidditch uniform with a weary smile, wind-flushed cheeks, and a chocolate egg.

He was laughing with the redheaded boy and the brown-haired girl, flurries of white settling in their hair and on their shoulders, glee, sharp with the cold, echoing in the air around them.

The same two stood waiting for him.

They sat across from him, their joy infectious.

The Darkness snapped.

His breath caught in his throat.

"You're the weak one," he said as Voldemort drew his wand back, his lip-less mouth curling in a sick snarl. "And you'll never know love...or friendship."

Harry met Dumbledore's eyes.

_It isn't how you are alike...it is how you are not...  
_

"And I feel _sorry _for you."

Voldemort regained his hold on Harry's mind and the memories flashed by in a choppy film of horror.

He stood before the mirror again and drew back his fist without really knowing what he was doing. The sound of breaking glass was as sharp as the resulting shards that stung his knuckles, but he didn't care.

Voldemort was the one in pain now, and Harry pulled back again, shattering the image that Voldemort wished him to believe - that they were the same.

They both screamed. The glass buckled completely and the mirror was no more.

For a moment, he was again in Sirius' arms.

Voldemort roared.

Harry cried out once more as he was released.

He lay still, panting, Dumbledore standing over him, and then it was Voldemort there.

"You are a fool, Harry Potter. And you will lose..._everything_."

His eyes fell on his friends, who stood defiantly, without visible fear of the self-styled Lord.

Ron, silent strength behind the girls. Neville, his hand on Luna's shoulder. Luna, standing tall and glaring at Voldemort with no trace of her usual dreamy exterior. Hermione and Ginny, gripping hands and staring at him, willing him on.

Voldemort had less to lose, but what Harry had was strong enough to win.


End file.
